News

UC Davis researchersannounced Tuesday that, after studying brain tissue from 423 Americans of Latino, African and non-Hispanic white descent, they have discovered startling variations in the causes of dementia among people of different races and ethnicities.

Seventeen-year-old Justin Silver was five when he was diagnosed with fragile X syndrome. Despite living across the country in New York, the family traveled to the UC Davis MIND Institute in Sacramento, Calif., where they met the world’s leading experts in the field.

Researchers at UC Davis zoomed in on a group of children whose older siblings already had an autism diagnosis. Across 241 kids, 14.1 percent of those whose mothers took prenatal vitamins during their first month of pregnancy went on to develop autism, versus 32.7 percent amongst the group whose mothers didn’t take the vitamins.

Charles DeCarli, neurologist and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Center, and Kimberley McAllister, director of the Center for Neuroscience and professor in the neurology and neurobiology, physiology and behavior departments, are taking an interdisciplinary approach to rethink how brain health is defined as champions of the Healthy Brain Aging Initiative: Brain Health Across the Lifespan Big Idea for UC Davis.

Having access to the genetic “roadmap” of the strawberry will help berry growers stave off diseases like Fusarium wilt, which can ravage strawberry fields, according to Steve Knapp, director of the Strawberry Breeding Program at UC Davis and part of the research team on the study.

Two Big Ideas champions and a Big Ideas faculty member have received national recognition for their groundbreaking work in their respective fields. Keith David Watenpaugh is the champion of the Global Human Rights Big Idea. David Slaughter is the champion of the Smart Farm Big Idea and Allen Van Deynze serves as a faculty member alongside Slaughter.

As a physician, my loyalty is to my patients: listening to their stories, helping them choose medications, then getting them home to their families. But when that patient is a potential school shooter, my loyalties get complicated.

“On the whole, it’s good news. But good news on water is only temporary in California,” said Jay Lund, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis, and director of watershed sciences at the school. “In wet years, we have to prepare for dry years, and in dry years for wet years.”

New scientific research over the past few decades has taught us better ways to help struggling fish populations. Scientists throughout the state have determined that the water-only approach to helping fish favored by the State Water Board simply may not be the best solution.

On its face, it might seem Dr. Fred Meyers at the UC Davis School of Medicine is looking at one very specific problem. He’s studying soldiers with complex trauma, such as a serious burn combined with a head injury. But he says the method he’s using — called precision medicine — could ultimately change the way doctors nationwide treat both military and civilian patients.

Currently, one in 59 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder — triple the number of families affected in 2000 — according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Effective treatments for ASD are not widely available, leaving many families without access to care, especially those in rural, low-income and underserved areas. In addition, services are limited for adults with ASD.